As social media evolves, standing out as a brand and uniquely attaining an audience’s attention has become increasingly more difficult. For one hotel, in particular, this exact scenario was starting to emerge.
NB: This is an article from Screen Pilot
After what was thought to be an entire business quarter of successful social media strategy in Q2 of 2019 for this property, social media insights were proving otherwise.
More specifically, the engagement metric, which shows how much content is resonating with the audience, was down 63.3% on Instagram and down 58.2% channel-wide (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter combined).
As previously discussed in Part 1 and Part 2 of this Instagram blog series, the engagement metric is one of the most important numbers to pay attention to in social media. It is a metric that is only earned when content successfully wins over the audience’s attention and compels them enough to dedicate further time to interacting with posts.
In this final part of this three-part blog series, the Screen Pilot team maps out and executes tactics that aid in the recovery of the property’s engagement metrics.
Building the Road to Recovery
It was recommended by the social media team that hosting a social contest, and inciting some gamification for fans and followers, would be the best course of action to entice engagement with the hotel channels. The first step in hosting this contest was planning what the offer would be; and after diving into historic insights pulled from monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting insights, spa content proved noticeably more popular over other topics.
Working collaboratively with the partners at the hotel, it was decided that the grand prize winner would receive a $200 gift card to the hotel spa, as well as two additional gift cards for two of their friends.
The next question was – who would this prize appeal to? When diving into the social audience insights, it was obvious that women made up a majority of the engaged followers. Furthermore, most of the followers were engaging on Instagram over their other managed channels, Facebook and Twitter. With this, there was enough credible information to launch the giveaway with both organic and paid promotions targeting this niche audience both locally and regionally.
For the contest, an Instagram post was published instructing followers to tag two friends in the comments (the friends they would share the prize with) and encourage the entrant and their two friends to follow the property on Instagram.
Note: When running a contest or giveaway, see Instagram’s Promotion Guidelines and ensure all rules and regulations are being followed. To add a shiny layer of additional support to the giveaway, the post was boosted over the course of the promotional run.
Contest Results
After the completion of the giveaway, each of the statistics we measured showed major increases: from impressions and followers to our key metric, engagements.
After just one campaign, September’s engagement increased by 217% on Instagram, and at quarter’s end, engagement was up 381% on Instagram and up 93.5% channel-wide, with just an average cost of $0.23 per engagement. Overall, this campaign proved to be an efficient practice that increased the hotel’s engagement metrics back to desired levels.
With the learnings from this Instagram blog series, hotel brands and marketers can be confident that what is being distributed on social media is continuing to gain credible traction with their potential guests.
However, maintaining a dynamic strategy that continues to further engage guests, whether that be through extended contests or giveaways, Instagram Stories, or aesthetically pleasing photos designed in Instagram Grid Takeovers, will keep your brand at the forefront of ever-changing social media platforms.
